Closing the Gap: What the 2024 Living Wage Verification Reveals About living wage gaps

The global banana sector relies on the dedication of thousands of workers whose labour brings one of the world’s most consumed fruits to market. To make sure that these workers receive a living wage, 21 retailers from Germany, Belgium, UK and the Netherlands set up national commitments in the previous years to close the living wage gaps related to their volumes in their banana supply chains moving forward.

In 2025, 13 of these retailers agreed to perform on site verifications of salary matrix data from 2024. Their shared goal: strengthen the accuracy of wage data as precondition for fairer pay and subsequently ensure that the decisions they will take with their supply chains partners afterwards to close the gaps are based on correct data.

This article summarises the findings emerging from the verification of 117 salary matrices from banana plantations, conducted by independent auditors from FLOCERT in 2025.

IDH, GIZ, and the retailer groups, together with their supply chain partners, decided on the sample of plantations for verification. In an effort to take a risk-based approach to the farm selection, farms that had a positive verification result and no Living Wage Gap in the previous year’s data verification were excluded from the sample pool. Auditors visited plantations, analysed documentation, compared payroll records, and interviewed workers in 117 plantations across 10 countries. Their findings paint a landscape that is complex but hopeful.

More than half of all verified plantations received a positive verification result

This shows that many plantations can provide reliable wage information when guidance is well understood and recordkeeping systems are sufficiently robust.

Yet data challenges remain widespread

Negative verification results were consistently linked to similar patterns:

• Missing or incomplete documentation regarding working hours and payments
• Incomplete or inaccurate records such as unregistered worker categories, unpaid or unrecorded leave, inaccurate total hours worked
• Errors involving bonuses or inkind benefits (e.g. on severance payments (“cesantias”))
• Misalignment between records, invoices, and reported data
• Misclassification of workers or job categories
• Lack of understanding of the salary matrix calculation

These are not isolated issues — they reflect structural weaknesses in payroll systems across the sector and point at a clear need to work on the improvement of wage data and working hours registration at producer level. Without these systems in place it will remain very difficult to calculate the accurate living wage gaps.

For the first time, post verification checks were offered to the plantations with a negative result. 27% requested such a check to take the opportunity to correct the identified errors. 60% of these plantations were able to correct the errors and achieve a positive outcome after all. The other plantations were not able due to missing or incomplete documentation. We can therefore conclude that the introduction of post verification correction checks in 2024 helped many plantations successfully address initial errors.

Across the plantations verified, a majority (73%) showed living wage gaps affecting their workforce. The majority of those plantations had a positive verification (58%). On plantations where a gap existed, it affected over half of workers on average (59%). Positive verification results account for a higher Living Wage Gap workforce share with 71% vs 43% for farms with negative verification results.  On average, all workers earning below a living wage have a gap of 18% relative to the reference living wage benchmark in their area. Whether the verification result was positive or negative did not seem to significantly influence the average Living Wage Gap. However, when translated in dollars, farms with positive verification results had a considerably higher total plantation wage gap: USD85,217 vs. USD 24,687 for farms with negative verification results.

The Essential Role of Workers and Trade Union Representatives

During each onsite verification, auditors are required to share the results with an elected worker representative or trade union representative wherever possible. This ensures:

• Workers have visibility of how wages are being reported
• Verification is not conducted solely through management channels
• Any inconsistencies between lived experience and official records can be flagged

This step strengthens the credibility and ethical grounding of the entire verification process.

Across all plantations verified, the large majority of verifications involved workers or union representatives (81%). The inclusion rate demonstrates a growing recognition that workers must be active participants in wage transparency efforts.

Where participation was partial or absent, the reasons reflected structural barriers rather than lack of interest, such as:

• The absence of formal worker representation (8%)
• Time constraints or scheduling overlaps (4%)
• Management not allowing the report to be shared with worker representatives (5%)  

Despite their involvement, auditors noted that workers’ awareness of the Salary Matrix and living wage concepts remains low. This gap limits workers’ ability to meaningfully participate in verification and to advocate for improvements. Strengthening workerl evel understanding is therefore essential — not only for accurate verification, but for empowering workers to claim their rights.

Although it is not possible to do a like for like comparison since the verified plantations are not the same over the years, some learnings can be drawn from putting the 2025 results in context. The 2025 cycle included far more plantations than earlier years and intentionally prioritised higherrisk sites — those more likely to show inconsistencies or wage gaps. When compared with previous years, there is a lower proportion of positive results.

Although the composition of plantations changes annually, one trend is clear:

• The proportion of plantations with living wage gaps remains high year after year.
• The share of workers affected shows only minor variation across cycles.

This continuity points to the structural nature of the challenge and the need for long term, coordinated action.

When looking at the reasons of a negative verification, similar categories of errors appear year after year, showing that the complexity of wage systems and need for guidance.

Based on the verification findings, FLOCERT identified the following recommendations for the next verification cycles moving forward.

      1. Advance verification planning and organize more pre-check before the on-site verification

• Expand remote data quality checks and have results ready prior to verifications
• Start planning verifications earlier with all partners

      2. Strengthen data systems and support plantations

• Provide adhoc expert guidance during data entry
• Continue supporting producers through training. Offer more targeted, practical, countrylevel training
• IDH to update the salary matrix based on feedback
• Encourage use of digital payroll systems aligned with Salary Matrix requirements

      3. Continuous improvement

• Clarify complex issues like severance payments (“cesantias”) and work on a sector-wide aligned approach on how to account for these payments
• Continue post-verification checks
• Continue to combine verification services for efficiency

     4. Deepen worker engagement and awareness

• Increase outreach to workers on wage concepts
• Strengthen participation of trade unions and worker representatives during verification.